The acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common and devastating form of acute lung injury that affects nearly 200,000 Americans each year. Presently, there are no medical therapies available for these critically ill patients, and the mortality remains unacceptably high at 30-50%. There are a paucity of investigators who perform high quality patient oriented research involving patients who have developed ARDS or are at risk for this syndrome. My interest in ARDS began during my fellowship. I was mentored by Dr. Polly Parsons with the support of the ARDS SCOR grant at the University of Colorado. After my fellowship, I continued to conduct clinical, translational, and epidemiological research concering ARDS at Emory University, and have received extramural funding for my work since 1996. My primary research studies examine the mechanisms by which alcohol abuse increases susceptibility to the development of ARDS. I have also expanded my interests in ARDS to include studies of acute neuromuscular dysfunction in ARDS patients, and epidemiological studies of patients with ARDS or sepsis using national databases. During this time, I was fortunate to have mentored 20 junior investigators in patient oriented research concerning ARDS. The majority of these trainees have remained in academic medicine and obtained independent funding for their research. Based on my prior success as a research mentor, I was recruited back to the University of Colorado to become the Head of Critical Care this July. The primary reason for my recruitment was to establish new collaborative projects with the many esteemed basic science researchers in the division and to mentor medical students, housestaff, and junior faculty who have an interest in patient oriented acute lung injury research. My ultimate charge from the Dean and Chairman of the Department of Medicine is to build a patient-oriented research program in the area of acute lung injury. With the support of this award, I will be able to establish myself as a leader in translational, clinical, and epidemiological research related to acute lung injury, to become a leader in the development of clinical and translational research in pulmonary and critical care medicine, and to train the next generation of physician-scientists. (End of Abstract)